Whoops!

In an attempt to clean out the garage, I have sad news to report... (well, I'm not that sad there was an exchange of money involved that made it a more pleasant experience.)

• The most excellent credenza that we found has moved on to a new home.  
• A trendy set of mid-century dressers went to a lovely young lady out of area.
• The French provincial dresser went off to refinish land at a new home.

Insert dramatic sigh here. No, really. Dramatic as in WHEW -- there's some space in the garage!

A Dresser Reborn

It comes as no surprise that I spend a fair amount of time trolling Craigslist looking at what appears to be my passion - dressers. I can only blame it on the fact that I haven't had one since I moved to Ohio in the late 90's. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

A few weeks back I spotted a rather plain pine dresser for far too good a price to pass up. I contacted the seller, but didn't hear back from them so I figured it had already been sold. About a week later, I received an email asking if I was still interested. Yes, please!

A ginger beauty...

It isn't the style that I'm usually attracted to but it was exactly what the apothecary ordered. It just so happens that we are both members of the Society for Creative Anachronisms which means we have what feels like four times the amount of stuff to store as a normal person. His and hers plus his and hers personas. Don't even get me started on the span of centuries and civilizations we cover. Needless to say, we needed a dresser that could serve our vast and often nefarious storage purposes.

The update process started easily enough with the decision to paint the dresser. Why? Well, we had a lovely blue color on hand in an enamel finish left over from the laundry room debacle.   (Never buy a quart of paint, always buy a gallon... lesson learned.) The body of the dresser is Sherwin Williams Calypso and the drawers are spray painted white. Thank you for the idea of mixing it up like that, Internet!

Tidy Cat should be in every picture!

Sanded, primed, painted, painted, poly, and poly. There she is in all her glory. It's hard to tell the color from the picture due to the warm tone of the overhead lights, but it is essentially Tidy Cat blue. We picked up the hardware at a local store and spray painted them blue. Overall, I call this a project a success... provided you don't see the several pieces of cat hair that mysteriously ended up in the polyurethane on the drawers...

 

Another busy weekend...

We went out a little earlier on Sunday to visit Big Blue for a curtain rod. When the first turn happened, I realized that the hunt was on. A few streets down we saw the back side of this behemoth credenza and quickly stopped by for a look. The buffet appeared to be solid concrete oak, but was in otherwise great condition. The four center drawers worked perfectly and, after closer inspection in the privacy of the garage, there are silverware drawers and shelves in each of the side panels. At least right now, I think this will fit perfectly in the mud room after a little elbow grease gets it into more modern shape. The feet are a subtle Greek key design, but  the drawer pulls leave quite a bit to be desired and the relief work on the two cabinets looks like a cross between cherry blossoms and safari. The picture looks a bit askew because it is technically resting on a furniture dolly on its side. Gotta save space, right?

Side note: While looking for drawer pulls, I managed to find an awesome refinished credenza that is exactly like the one we found. This is going to be a most excellent project!

TNR 3: Siamese

I have a soft spot for Siamese cats thanks to my childhood. One of my best friends was Daddy Cat, a seal point Siamese cat that my mother had. He was the best. Not only did he love and care for kittens, but he was happy to share his cat food with me too. (Kibble is tasty!)

When we caught this Siamese on Tuesday night, I was pretty hopeful that it would be as friendly as Domino and Snippers (so I could keep it...) When I picked it up at the APL, it was still pretty groggy from the surgery, quiet, and very unhappy to have to interact with this particular human. I looked at the paperwork briefly and asked the boy helping me carry it (and the trap) to the car at the clinic and he cheerfully let me know it was a female. I was happy as a clam, finally a source of kittens off the street...

While waiting at the stop sign, I looked at the rest of the paperwork: 5 years old, some issues with teeth... but I was caught off guard by another note... lactating. So my happy cheer was cut short by the realization that I'd trapped a nursing mother and kept her from her kittens overnight. D'oh. A quick call to the clinic and a browse of the internet advised that we should let her go the day after the surgery to be reunited with her brood. I don't know how old the kittens are but hopefully they are no worse for the wear. She looked alright this morning, so I opened the recovery room doors and she was back into the world by 8:00 AM. I hope to see her around at dinner time in the future, although not in the trap.

Other TNR Friends

When I got home, the aforementioned cat was still in the car while I was getting ready to release Snippers. He really wasn't too interested in going any further than my lap or however far my hand reached. He is SUPER friendly and very attentive, the kind of kitty you can (and did) take for a walk around the house. He lounged under my car for a while, then came back in to see what I was doing to his bachelor pad (sweeping...) After his snack, he walked back in to take a bit of a rest break in the box, then wandered out again. Kinda funny, he was my little buddy all evening. Domino showed up for dinner (as did Domina, the female cat) and he rolled around all friendly like and let me pet him. Snippers and Dom had a bit of a hissing row, but otherwise all was well in SLP-catland.

The caption on this photo should read "FEED ME" or "PET ME" ... and stop screwing around with that thing in your hand.

Off into the sunset...

Today is bittersweet. A large collection of items are going to their next home via Craiglist. Sniff! It was a bit serendipitous - the gentleman originally inquired about an Ikea console that I listed, but ended up with a little more than he bargained for. He asked the loaded question - what else do you have for sale?

He will leave with a dresser, two night stands with drawers, two end tables, six kitchen chairs, a gigantic kitchen table with thee leaves, an Ikea solid wood console table, and a free ($1.99 on sale at Target) table cloth.

Bon voyage!

TNR: Overview

If you aren't familiar with the acronym TNR, take a moment to look here. Since I moved in, I have had several cats of varying ages coming to the side door at night to see if there's any leftovers. I don't have a problem sharing, I did it often when I lived at the apartment, but what I do have a problem with is people not spaying their female cats.

We have one outdoor cat, Domino (or Domina...) who comes to the door every night when we get home from work. She's cute and reminds me of Poo, my Tuxedo indoor cat. During one feeding, I noticed that she was a little round on the sides. That was how I found my Siamese cat, Pig. I can only imagine that Pig went into heat and was subsequently let outside to let nature take its course.

At any rate... politics and religious beliefs aside... I've begun a small TNR campaign at SLP.

TNR 1
Domino 2, or Dom. This is a friendly black and white Tuxedo cat who was the first one to walk towards the trap. I picked him up (before he set it off) and put him in a carrier. He was a little unhappy to volunteer for the honor, but is no worse for the wear and was released on Tuesday after spending the night feasting and frolicking in the mudroom.

Services: $20. ($10 neuter at APL, plus $10 accidental donation. Oops!)
Total: $20

TNR 2
Grey Tabby, or (now) Snippers. We had the trap out pretty late as we were working in the garage. About 9:00, I said we should get the trap in and it was as if the word beget the action. Snippers was very unhappy overnight, but was pretty quiet for the car ride in the morning. I picked him up and left him crated until evening after I picked up a wire kennel from a nice gentleman on Craigslist for $10. Since he seemed fairly friendly (i.e. not hissing and spitting), we released him into the kennel where he promptly walked in, stretched, then took a frantic #1. He stayed in the kennel overnight and I let him out to explore the mudroom and get some petting in this morning. I will release him tonight if all is well. He was very interested in coming into the house, so obviously he has experience with humans.

Services: $20 (Neuter, plus de-worming.)
Wire Cage: $10
Total: $50

TNR 3
Siamese. M. put out the trap last night and again, as we were getting ready to go get it for the night, the trap snapped. Kitty was NOT happy, but fared well overnight in the garage and was a perfect gentlecat on the drive to the APL this morning. I should have taken a picture of kitty when it was calm, because it is gorgeous and reminds me of Pig when she was little. We'll see how it does tonight in the recovery room.

Services: $10 (Neuter.)
Total: $60

Related, but not... I feel the need to defend my TNR activity. If you have an outdoor cat, please put a collar on it. If the cat doesn't wear a collar, please tip the ear so it isn't caught by a mean ball-snipping-armpit-hair-farming liberal hippy like myself. I know some of these cats belong to people, they are just too friendly to be feral, and I guess I'm sorry that I took it upon myself to try to stop the yowling and cat fights outside my windows at night. If you live in Cleveland and need assistance altering your animal, please contact the APL. They will spay or neuter your cats for $10. Appointments are great, but their intake facility accepts walk-ins, too.

Cleveland City limits

• Kittens and cats - $10 each
  (as long as the City subsidy lasts, hopefully all year!)

Cuyahoga County suburbs (non-City)

• Kittens (up to 5 mos) - $15
• Cats (6 mos & up) - $25

Out-of-County

• Kittens - $25
• Cats - $40

Proof of in-county status will be required at the time of check-in for surgery.
Cleveland APL's website: http://www.clevelandapl.org/tnr.htm

Blonde Ambition

It is with a sad heart that I say farewell to this blonde dresser -- it was the first piece of furniture that I moved into the house. It is a gorgeous piece and I have been trying to make room for it wherever I could re-imagine it. With the queen-sized guest bed and frame, there wasn't enough room to open the drawers, so it was moved downstairs into the office. It kind of worked there, but ultimately we needed something that would hold crazy things like a printer and scanner instead of papers and miscellaneous junk. Thank you, Craigslist for this find and thank you for helping me find its new home.

What a fun Sunday!

Sunday night is date night here at SLP. This week we were almost too pooped from the usual household chores to go out lawn shopping, but I'm glad we did. Amongst the usual flotsam and jetsam, we stumbled across these solid wood beauties. They're in amazing condition. The only real visible flaw I can find is that one of the handles has been replaced on the men's wardrobe. Funnily enough, we've got another dresser in the garage that has the exact same handle. Go figure. :) I'm not sure what we'll do with them, but they're almost too pretty (and a matched set at that) to let go of. I'm thinking of painting them a light white or cream color and oil-rubbed bronze hardware.

Passion for Pomegranate

I'm not sure when I first saw this couch, but I recall precisely when noticed it. When I moved to Parma, W. began showing me the sights including a lovely place called Second City. The premise behind the store is all incoming items get a born on date and every day they're in the store, they lose 1% of value. Nice, huh? Except everyone in the county knows about it so you have to go in all the time to try and get the good stuff early!

At any rate, mid-February I was strolling through Second City on a lark and stopped in my tracks, breath caught in my throat. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the most wonderful lines and an eye-catching pattern that tempted my inner design nerd girl. Was it lust? Love? I wasn't sure. I sent a frantic text to W. to ask her if I was crazy and going through a mid-life crisis. She assured me she was not, but came at my request to talk me in (or out) of it. We agreed. It was a classy couch in awesome condition. And best of all? While originally listed at $125, the price that day was $56. I couldn't believe my luck! A quick call to the Outlaw and this baby was mine!

Was? Yeah, was. What I didn't realize then... but realize now... that I have spacial issues and that I apparently think SLP is about 50 times larger than it really is. (The house is 1550 square feet, give or take.) The couch served well for about a month until the looming realization that M's furniture would be there soon and there was (truthfully) no where for this awesome couch to go. Sigh. I turned my heavy heart to Craigslist and offered her to a new home.

Oddly enough, I got a response very quickly from an agriculture professor at OSU - someone who at least in my mind would appreciate just how awesomely girly and floral the couch was. I don't know where she is using it, but the lengths she went to to pick it up proved to me that it was in better hands than mine. (Renting a truck and a 1 hour drive each way? Above and beyond!)

I will miss you, pomegranate couch. But you will live on in my heart. <3

I should have known better...

... than to fall in love with you!

Ok, more to the point I should have known better than to think I would have any free time after signing the papers on a house! It has been a little over two weeks and I am still in the process of moving in. I have had the luxury of time on my side as the lease on my apartment didn't expire until Feb 29th. :) I'll summarize the changes soon!

Bring on the insanity!

When I was growing up, I dreamed of living in medieval castles or caves with spirits of ancient bears. Now that reality has set in and I'm living my 30-something crisis, I've saddled myself with the ancient curse circa the Brady Bunch era... In less than an hour, I will sign over my life for a mortgage on a split-level home in lovely wild suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio. Herein documents my journey for any who care to take a ride with me on this crazy crazy train! (We are definitely going off the rails!)